Sunday, October 2, 2016

Monocacy learns more about fallen Rebel soldier and the Bible that took a bullet

(Courtesy of Perry Adams Antiques)

Park rangers
at Monocacy National Battlefield have had seen success and setbacks in their bid to learn more about the life and death
of a Confederate soldier wounded when a bullet passed through his Bible and
went through his chest.

Pvt. Thomas
Cox, a member of the Red House Volunteers,
Company A, 21st Virginia
Infantry, was wounded and captured on July 9, 1864, at the battlefield near Frederick, Md. The 33-year-old farmer from Carroll County died on Aug. 15, 1864, at a Baltimore hospital.

A park intern conducting research this past summer learned
that Baltimore hospital records had been damaged or destroyed, possibly in a
fire, curator Tracy Evans told the Picket.

What is known
about Cox’ final weeks was that he asked a fellow prisoner at the squalid West Building’s Hospital to inscribe a message in his battered Bible.

“The ball that struck this book entered my left
brest (sic) and came out of right – it saved instant death & will be the
means of saving my soul. Thomas Cox,” reads the penciled writing on the margins
of a few pages. On succeeding pages is written: “Blessed are the dead that die
in the Lord.”

The park intern learned that Cox and his wife had
two children before the war and one on the way when he enlisted in 1861. The
soldier was able to return to his farm several times during the war and
fathered two more children. He recuperated from two illnesses at home while on
medical leave.

(Courtesy of Perry Adams Antiques)

The 21st Virginia had seen considerable
action, including at Gettysburg, before the fight at Monocacy.

“After the men forded the
Monocacy River, they formed up in battle line and assaulted the Union line. 5
According to Sgt. John Worsham, the men in the 21st tore down a fence railing
and with the years of hardened experience behind them, rushed forward in a
charge against Union positions without orders from their officers. Somewhere in
this rush and exchanging volleys of fire, Private Cox was struck by a bullet,”
intern Chris Sniezek and ranger Kelly Henderson wrote.

Cox died five weeks later
of infection and was buried in Baltimore, where he remains buried.

Evans said the research led
to emails to potential descendants, but officials have not heard back. They did
learn from research of a relative in the Confederate unit that Cox’ widow
remarried and was believed to have additional children.

The bullet-struck Bible is
remarkable in its own way. There’s a gaping hole in the center of the book. “We are
thinking it must have gone in sideways,” said Evans, adding that is perhaps the
reason Cox was not killed outright.

Officials
want to display the Bible next year, but they know it likely can hold up only
to certain lighting conditions, and perhaps for brief periods of exposure. They
are looking for more information on Cox and other soldiers whose names and
information were written on the Bible’s pages. There is no known photo of the
soldier.

“The Bible itself has been given an initial condition assessment
and will likely go for light preservation next year with recommendations on how
it should be put on display and for how long,” said Evans. “We would also like
to have a better analysis done of possible blood on the Bible.” She cautioned
there is no evidence of blood, but officials are curious as to whether small traces
remain on the pages.

(Perry Adams Antiques)

Conservation experts at the National Park Service’s
Harpers Ferry Center also will give advice on mounting of the Bible and whether it should be displayed opened or closed.

In an article prepared for
an upcoming issue of Civil War News, the park researchers also delved into the
story of the Bible’s publication. This one was published in 1862 by Wood,
Hanletter, Rice and Company of Atlanta.

“Prior to the
Civil War, Bibles were mostly printed and distributed by the American Bible
Society based in New York. When the war broke out, the American Bible Society
decided to continue distributing Bibles to Confederate soldiers, but a Union
blockade soon left the South in a severe shortage. Faced with this shortage,
the Confederate States Bible Society was established to print and distribute
new Confederate Bibles.”

The dying Cox got the writing assistance from
Pvt. H.S. Shepherd, a Confederate who was captured at Gettysburg in July 1863
and assisted sick comrades while serving as a ward master at the Baltimore
hospital.

“I was with Thos. Cox when he died,” Shepherd
wrote in the Bible. “He was willing … & appear ready to leave this world
for a better one to come."

Another inscription indicates Cox asked that his
ring be sent to his widow, Frances.